Cougars were wiped out in the eastern US except for a small population in Florida.

Early pioneers tended to shoot anything that was seen as dangerous.

The Pacific Northwest has a good population of cougars, black bears and some folks say Bigfoot.

I have a friend who insists he saw a cougar in rural Virginia within the past 10 years, and who has photographs to prove it. The photographs don't look like a bobcat - the animal doesn't have any spots, and is significantly larger than a typical bobcat. I've seen his pictures and I think he may well be right.

But there are important differences between the cougar and Bigfoot - Virginia is very much within the cougar's known historic range, and the animal is still seen in other parts of the country including incidental sightings in places outside its current nominal range. Cougars are very well-known and are occasionally killed by hunters and others, including law enforcement when they encroach on human habitations. Bigfoot fits none of these descriptions.

Sean.

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Did they beat the drum slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

I have a friend who insists he saw a cougar in rural Virginia within the past 10 years, and who has photographs to prove it. The photographs don't look like a bobcat - the animal doesn't have any spots, and is significantly larger than a typical bobcat. I've seen his pictures and I think he may well be right.

But there are important differences between the cougar and Bigfoot - Virginia is very much within the cougar's known historic range,

One possible way to track the Bigfoot's range would be to research Indian tribal legends. I believe every Indian tribe in the Pacific Northwest has stories about Bigfoot.

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and the animal is still seen in other parts of the country including incidental sightings in places outside its current nominal range.

There are (or were) about 50 cougars in the state of Florida. Curiously, a Florida panther expert (who has written a book about them) started seeing Bigfoot tracks when he was out looking for panther tracks. He had one Bigfoot sighting in an area, where he had seen Bigfoot tracks.

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Cougars are very well-known and are occasionally killed by hunters and others, including law enforcement when they encroach on human habitations.

How far could you drag a dead Bigfoot if you shot one?

Hunters are reluctant to shoot things that walk around on two legs.

Also, you need a .338 magnum or bigger to kill a grizzly bear, and by many accounts, the typical Bigfoot is about the size of a grizzly.

A few hunters, who allegedly did get one in their sights, have said that they felt they were looking at something far too human-like to shoot.

I agree - if there's some unknown large ape or hominid still roaming around in the world, it's almost certainly living in a relatively restricted habitat somewhere where there are large sparsely populated areas; the Pacific Northwest would be a prime candidate. The problem is that Bigfoot is alleged to have been seen in every State in the Union except for Hawaii as well as every Province in Canada, which is actually a real difficulty, particularly in the East, which has been well populated for centuries - yet there's been no physical evidence produced, and only equivocal photographic evidence.

This strongly suggests that the image of a large ape is some kind of psychological projection onto animals like bears, which are indeed ubiquitous and which can look vaguely ape-like under the right circumstances. Our brain is wired to find human-like patterns in what we see, and if an animal like a bear can fit that pattern under the right conditions it's easy for us to convince ourselves that we saw a large hominid.

Sean.

Well said mate.

Our brains are hardwired to see patterns, and human-lke characteristics, and with the bigfoot phenomena, we're even more likely to want to attribute these characteristics to any animal we see at a distance we can't quite make out.